The choice of Dublin-based architects O'Donnell + Tuomey to design the building was deliberate — they had already worked on the adjacent V&A East Museum, and the two new institutions were conceived as part of a coherent cultural campus. The resulting theatre includes six dance studios, a 550-seat auditorium, rehearsal spaces, two cafes and bars, and an L-shaped foyer that looks out over the Waterworks River.

The most technically significant decision was to give the 550-seat auditorium exactly the same stage dimensions as the main Islington theatre. This means productions created at one venue can transfer to the other without any adjustment to the physical staging — a practical choice that makes the two venues genuinely complementary rather than simply related by name. Retractable seating allows the configuration to shift, opening the stage up for work that doesn't require a fixed proscenium relationship with the audience.

The East Bank is a broader ambition: a cluster of cultural institutions — including the V&A East Museum, a new outpost of the BBC, and University College London's East campus — gathered in the park built for the 2012 Olympics. It represents a significant investment in East London's cultural infrastructure, a part of the city long underserved by major cultural institutions despite having some of the densest and most diverse communities in Britain.

Mayor Sadiq Khan attended the official opening ceremony on 6 February 2025. The London Legacy Development Corporation, which has overseen the long-term transformation of the Olympic Park site, managed construction. Critics who reviewed the building noted its clarity of purpose and the quality of the dance spaces — designed specifically to support in-house production and the training of choreographers.

The artists and companies featured in the opening programme gave a sense of what Sadler's Wells East intends to be. Ivan Michael Blackstock premiered TRAPLORD; Botis Seva brought Until We Sleep; Phoenix Dance Theatre performed Inside Giovanni's Room. Birmingham Royal Ballet's junior company BRB2 appeared alongside Candoco Dance Company, which works with disabled and non-disabled dancers. Aakash Odedra performed. Theatre Royal Stratford East collaborated on a production of Romeo and Juliet by Kwame Owusu.

International work by Trajal Harrell, Mette Ingvartsen, Sharon Eyal, Mythili Prakash, and Emma Martin was also presented. The breadth of the programme — from British hip-hop dance to classical Indian form to European contemporary work — positioned the venue as something genuinely pluralist rather than a simple extension of existing Sadler's Wells programming.

Sadler's Wells East is built to function as a satellite, not a successor. The original theatre in Islington — which has been on its site, in various forms, since 1683, and in its current building since 1998 — continues to operate. The relationship between the two venues is meant to be complementary: the Islington theatre continues as the senior institution, while the East theatre focuses on in-house production and choreographic development.

In summer 2025, the YFX Youth Festival ran jointly between both venues — a two-week event presenting performances by the National Youth Dance Company and participants in the U.Dance national showcase. That kind of shared programming across two geographically distant London venues, connected by matching stages and a shared organizational vision, is what the architects of the East Bank cultural district had in mind from the beginning.